How To Predict Elections

 

People ask me how I could predict the British, Canadian,   US and New Zealand elections so accurately.

Of course, I considered a lot of factors -- but my stock in trade is PR, which means the art of persuasion.  I paid special attention to the slogans.


 
Here are a list of political slogans.

UK Election

Conservatives
Stronger Together

Labour
For the Many Not The Few

Canadian Election

Liberals
Real Change Now

NDP
Ready for Change

New Zealand Election

National Party
Delivering for New Zealanders

Labour
Let's Do this

American Presidential Election

Clinton
Better Together

Trump
Make America Great Again

How can a few words make such a big difference?  Easily -- because it's those few words that stick in the mind and define you.
 

 
Suppose you are at a party.  A lot of people you don't know but you want to impress.  You move around meeting people. You will define yourself in the first 30 seconds or so as somebody that the people you meet want to talk longer to -- or not.  Your appearance, your manner and your opening "frames" you.And once that gestalt has been set up, it is a priori to everything else. Your opening predicts your closing. But notice that you are defined not as much by "content" but by emotive factors that can be immediately intuited.  Words matter but only as part of the whole package.

Those of us in the Persuasion Game, know that people are emotional first; rational second.  "Reason" is usually a justification for an emotional position.  Yes, we rattle the swill bucket.

Slogans identify you by associating you with appealing to emotions and in the political realm - need.  They  must communicate an idea too, of course.   For this reason, longer slogans are usually better than shorter ones -- which only work with real creativity: they allow better definition. This is true for political parties, businesses, and nations.  

Looking at the UK election. the Mainstream Media predicted that Labour would be slaughtered.  Didn't happen.  In fact, Labour under the much vilified Corbyn, had one of their best results in many years.    

 

I predicted Corbyn's success looking at the slogans.  

The Tories"Stronger Together"....

What does THAT mean?  Together with whom?  The Europeans, Americans?  Scots?  Irish?   Was Labour trying to break up the Union? (Nope!). Clusterfuck maybe.  The slogan was as braindead as the Conservative Party, which did badly despite having the immense advantage of being supported by almost all of the corporate media and the BBC as well.

What is amazing is that Hillary Clinton tried an almost identical slogan, as usual not learning from a history -- which pretty much sums this woman up.  We'll come to that in a moment.  But again, Clinton, like May, had the support of the corporate media, certainly an advantage once-upon-a-time when alternative media did not exist.


Labour's slogan "For the Many Not The Few" was straight forward.  It was like Corbyn, unabashedly social democratic, authentic -- and while many Brits fear "socialism",  it voiced a goal that most  would agree with and no one could reasonably oppose. Inequality for Brits has always been a huge problem -- and is more than ever an issue today -- especially for the Young.

Turning to the Canadian election.  Polls first favored Mulcair, a level headed politico --  at least compared to the airhead Justin. 

But Mulcair is not his party.  Or maybe he was.  Both were conservative.

 Ready for change?  Again, WTF!  You mean: if change accidentally happens the NDP is ready for it?  Ready to do what?  Implement it?  Suppress it?  First, we're going to do 'same-old" and then adjust if "change" hits us over the head?

What the NDP needed to say but could not since they were stressing "continuity" -- you know, non-change change, whatever that is was : "Are you ready for change? Because that's we offer" Or maybe something like:  "We need a change. Real change"  .

 

Too long for slogans.  Not at all.  People who go for short, meaningless slogans without emotive impact just don't understand how the human mind works.

The liberals promised "real change now".  Not that any of that happened, of course.  Trudeau reneged on most of his major promises.  Still, the slogan pointed to the "iffy" nature of the NDP's notion of "change".  And if Trudeau runs again, he will win because he has little competition, airhead or not.

The NDP lacks principles.  What it really needs is a Momentum movement and a Jeremy Corbyn as in the UK.  Since the election it has managed to confirm its ball-less attitude w  by electing   Jagmeet Singh as leader.  His only merit seems to be being from a minority and wearing pink turbans.  

Vote for the rich, trendy, inarticulate Sikh guy and prove you're not racist, please. 


 Turning to New Zealand, we had Bill English "Delivering for New Zealanders".  Ah yes, he was hoping for a job with Fedex after the Election.?  Adern's "We can Do This" while not really inspired was at least positive , assuming you didn't ask what she meant by "this".  

Now, the Trump vs The Hillary.

As I mentioned "Better Together" was a version of Theresa May's "Stronger Together".  Copied slogans never work - which is why "Japan Cool" is just dumb - an obvious copy of Cool Britannia.  Now that the Tony Blair is in international pariah and the UK on the brink of collapse, you would think the Japanese would think of something else, less derivative..  For governments --and people like Hillary-- nothing succeeds like failure.


 
Trump's "Make America Great Again" was a good slogan.  It drew attention to the fact, obvious to every American,  that the US has been in decline for years, that the future is precarious, that American institutions are corrupt.

 

 Or course, it also appealed to patriotism - -for in the US, patriotism is the national religion.  So this slogan evokes a knee-jerk response the extends beyond Hillary's "deplorables".   

So, want to be a political pundit, right all the time.  Follow the slogans.